The chronology of the legal

Abstract

The most influential legal philosophies—notably legal positivism—tend to draw a sharp epistemological distinction between the concept of time and the concept of law. The author provides a legal pluralist account of law, understanding it to consist in a shared idea of justice and the shared normative experience of participants in a legal discourse. A common assumption by participants of their ability to grasp and control time—what the author terms “chronos”—forms one aspect of their shared experience of the legal. A normative understanding of time is thus fundamental to a normative understanding of law.